Gray skies hang above the Clinton Correctional Facility Annex, Monday, in Dannemora. News emerged Monday morning that the Annex along with medium security facilities in Gowanda and Watertown were slated for closure. (Press Republican - Joey LaFranca)

ALBANY — The Clinton Correctional Facility Annex in Dannemora is one of three state prisons slated for closure.

The Annex was tabbed along with medium security facilities in Gowanda and Watertown.

The closures are expected to be completed by March 30, 2021.

The administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the move as the state’s fiscal crisis deepens and the population of inmates wanes, according to people familiar with the plan.

“It would have been better if they spread these out instead of stacking them up like cord wood,” said Mark DeBurgomaster, western New York regional vice president for the New York State Corrections Officers Police Benevolent Association.

The Clinton Annex is an extension of the main correctional facility in Dannemora where convicted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from in June of 2015.

The pair were on the run for 23 days before Matt was shot and killed and Sweat shot and captured.

The main facility, which houses nearly 3,000 inmates, is not affected by the Annex closure.

The closures are expected to be controversial throughout the upstate region, which has been heavily impacted by pandemic-driven job losses.

The move comes as the state faces a budget deficit of some $8.7 billion.

New York’s fiscal crisis has sparked concerns that the state’s effort to downsize the prison system would be more aggressive than what initial projections suggested.

Not including this new round of closures, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, 17 New York prisons have been closed since 2011, eliminating some 6,500 beds.

On Aug. 1, the total inmate population stood at 37,559 inmates, 48 percent less than the total at the end of 1999.

The population decline accelerated dramatically over the past year. On Aug. 1, 2019, the prisons held 46,606 convicted felons.

Both Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Plattsburgh, and Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury have argued strenuously against prison closures within their districts.

Officials from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision had yet to respond to a request for comment.